Remembering Khwaja Nizami: Chronicler of 1857 revolt

Image: A rare potrait of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor on his death bed.

Khwaja Nizami, born 'sometime between 1876 and 1878', heard the first stories about the march of the mutinous soldiers from Meerut to Delhi, the crowning of Bahadur Shah Zafar as the emperor of India and the gory violence that followed from some of his classmates whose parents had survived the British revenge.

By the time he breathed his last in 1955 having almost gone blind, Nizami had authored over 500 books in all in Urdu, including those related to India's first war of independence. All through his eventful life, he remained a Sufi teacher, earning a large following both in this city of 1857 and far beyond.